Street Photography Tips for Beginners

23.06.2016

Street Photography Tips for Beginners

I can still recall my first time as street style photographer on a trip abroad, I was in New York for Fashion Week and I was excited and terrified at the same time. Starting this career requests few things in terms of equipment but, on the other hand, a lot of experience and practice. The purpose of street photography is to document daily life on the streets, and if you develop an authentic and personal style your photography will be more relevant. You must focus in capturing emotion, humanity, and try to depict a person’s character with your shots. Only showing a unique point of view on people and trends you can stand out of the crowd.

A great way to start out with this kind of photography is to choose a theme to develop in a little project of a certain number of shots all representing everyday life and objects in the open urban environment.

Always remember to be kind and ask for permission before shooting when it’s possible, in this way the chance you’re going to have a focused and on-point pictures is bigger.

The approach anyhow is much simpler than other genres and when it comes to editing and post-production keep it simple, or try to avoid manipulation at all if you can.

The final result must be simple and convey a stolen-shot impression, time is key when you afre shooting people walking down the streets. Try to capture unusual situations and be always ready to press the button whenever the right moment will turn up.

A decisive moment can be any facial expression, action or movement, furthermore people are the heart of street photography, the soul of the city, what make street photos so interesting. So be friendly, smile, approach them and you can also give them your card so you loom immediately professional.

As for the camera most of photographers prefer DSLR because they focus quickly and that has decent image quality in low light but if you want something more practical and smaller you can choose a mirrorless camera but the lens is not interchangeable. Using a fixed focal length will teach you to move in order to get closer to the subject and make your feet become your zoom. The ideal focal length for me is 35mm, but 28mm and 50mm can also work.

The settings will depend on how much available light there is, but you’ll want your shutter speed to be fast enough to freeze action, and your aperture closed down just enough not to blur out the
background completely. The scene surrounding the subject is so important, it adds character and interesting details.

And eventually the most important thing to achieve great results is to do what you do with love and passion, this is something that can be felt through your photos and that will make you keep try and experiment with this art discovering new ways to capture people and trends, to make people stop on your social media accounts and blog and hopefully to make it your dream job just like it appened to me.

MELANIE GALEA photographer, creative talent and fashion influencer based in Italy. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and visit her blog www.thestreetmuse.it.